u/CorndogQueen420

3/7 submitted (TDIU + sciatica rating increase)
5/1 C&P exam
6/19 rating
6/24 final review
6/26 decision

Results: TDIU denied, sciatica rating decreased.

I looked at the C&P exam notes, my examiner put that my strength/reflexes/flexion were all 5/5 perfect. She never physically examined me, and she made those numbers up. I don’t know what my numbers were for my last exam, but I know I didn’t have any reflex in my right leg, and it’s gotten worse since then.

I also told her that I can’t sit, stand or walk for more than 30 minutes at a time, that I need to lay down in between activity, and that I’m unable to do any sustained activity. She put in her notes that I have “some” difficulty with sustained activity.

The VA compared her bungled exam to the one I had previously when I got it service connected, and decided that I had improved, which got my claim denied and my rating decreased.

I’ve gotten significantly worse of course, which is why I filed for TDIU and an increase.

I’m just really frustrated. I’m on the verge of bankruptcy because I haven’t been able to work for almost 2 years, and my godawful examiner set me back 4-6+ months at a minimum.

I already have the prescription and I’ve taken it in the past when I had multiple partners, but these days I just have one guy I give head to sporadically, and it’s usually pretty rough face fucking (it’s not uncommon for me to accidentally draw blood biting my lip, etc). Like once a week when we’re in the groove, and every few weeks otherwise.

I know he’s active on hook up apps like sniffies and grindr, so I expect that he has lots of other partners. Which doesn’t bother me, but it does put me at risk.

Would y’all bother with PrEP? I take other medications that are hard on my kidneys, so my instinct is to avoid it if I can, but I’d feel like a moron if I got HIV without it.

Edit: thanks for the advice y’all, back on PrEP I go!

The last year particularly. Restaurant bacon tastes like rancid oil, supermarket bacon smells and tastes like expired meat fresh out of the oven.

Genuinely thought I was either losing my taste or all
bacon was just bad now. I’ve never really had an issue with cheap supermarket bacon before, but it’s borderline inedible these days.

I’m assuming this is old news to y’all, but I found out it’s injection cured bacon that’s the problem. Got some of that Wright brand bacon and *my god*. It tastes like actual bacon, like I remember from my childhood.

What the hell has happened to food these days? Are there any other brands are easy to find that are dry cured properly?

I’ve always had an intense distain for the distinctly 4chan brand of rage baiter nihilism, which has escaped containment and completely infected the right wing in America. The “I win if I can make myself shitty and annoying enough to get your attention/trigger you” mindset, with no other goals.

The smugness and unjustified gleefulness they have around successfully irritating people always felt ridiculous to me, because rage baiting is fundamentally easy. So easy that babies do it instinctively.

Newborn babies and very young children mostly try to get attention by making themselves too annoying to ignore. We all start life as rage baiters. Screaming, crying, tantrums, annoying behavior, all very easy and reliable ways to get attention, albeit mostly negative attention. It’s not necessarily intentional, it’s just all we know how to do at that stage. We’ve learned that it works and it’s quick, even though it’s exhausting and irritating for everyone around us.

Rage baiters never grew past that stage, because they aren’t capable of getting enough positive attention via hobbies, skills, good personality, and other things that most people would consider to be positive character or skill traits.

To most people “winning” involves accomplishing, or at least trying to accomplish/do something worthy of the relatively more rare positive attention. To rage baiters, winning involves debasing themselves for easy negative attention.

It’s loser behavior.

If they don’t get attention, they’ve debased themselves for nothing. If they DO get attention and “win”, they’ve debased themselves for the least gratifying and least fulfilling form of attention possible, and reinforced their own shitty behavior. And that’s setting aside how sad it is to frame getting negative attention as a victory, as if achieving on par with an infant is an accomplishment.

The next time somebody tries to act like they’re playing 4D chess when they’re ignorant or annoying enough to irritate you, know that they’ve already lost an inherently losing game- whether you engage with them or not.

/endramble 😂